Attention good Samaritans: a small Portland based hybrid cafe and comic book store needs your help to re-open after a vandal raided and robbed the shop. Adam Pool, The Spirtely Bean co-owner, and his wife launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $5,000 so they can replace damaged equipment, fix the store front, and to help tie them over financially, according to GoFundMe. The couple became parents around the same they started the business ten months ago.

https://twitter.com/SpritelyBean/status/654644529719472128

Here’s their account of what happened the night of the robbery and defacing:

As we were nearing our 10 month mark of being open for business, on the early morning of October 15th, 2015, a tall hooded figure,, decided to use a hatchet and bust out the glass of our front door, and proceeded to go straight to the ordering area, and started hacking away at our equipments, cash drawer, POS system as well as other furnitures. They did this rather quickly to get what they could, and escape without being caught. We were contacted by the Portland Police Officer, who told us a good samaritan reported the find as they were walking past our business. This is definitely heartbreaking to us. We felt a sense of loss and anger as we witnessed our little cafe being burglarized as well as destroyed by an individual who had no moral care on how it would affect us- a small, independent business, that relied on what we had to function properly. To us, it felt personal, but we know to them, it was simply grab what was of value to get some quick cash.

By the looks of their Twitter activity, Spirtely Bean hosts a variety events like 24-hour comic book day, figure drawing night, and weekly comic creator meet up. Thankfully, they have raised $4,330 since this blog was published and fixed the glass door. We all know how the comic book business works, and this is every retailer’s worst nightmare.

Click here if you can spare some dough and help keep the Spirtely Bean alive and roasting.

Henry Barajas is the co-creator, writer and letterer for El Loco and Captain Unikorn. He has also written and lettered short stories for two successful Kickstarter SpazDog Press projects: Unite and Take Over: Stories inspired by The Smiths and Break The Walls: Comic Stories inspired by The Pixies. He is the Newsroom Research Assistant for The Arizona Daily Star and was nominated for the Shel Dorf Blogger of the Year award for his work at The Beat. You can follow him on Twitter @HenryBarajas and Google+.